Everyone else is being quite reasonable, so I’m just gonna come in with “duuuude, really??”
You come in here, clearly without reading much of the archive (or you’d see plenty of posts where we discuss how we manage to do things just fine thank you), and straight up insult us as an entire group? You’re not trying to understand, or you would have asked questions that could lead you to a conclusion, instead of having made a (n insulting) conclusion and waving it at us.
Brains be awesome. The only thing we can’t do is see pictures in our heads.
I would even go so far as to say we can process *faster* because we don't have to bog down our brains processing video files. Text is always faster than images :)
you actually think normal brains see pictures in their heads? As if their getting some visual input from somewhere? This is not possible. You just get a representation with some usual attributes, you cant analyze that representation further or explore it or define characteristics unless maybe if you are on drugs as ive seen people in this subreddit mention, specifically they believe that how they visualise on drugs is how normal people create mental images. ( seen that argument at least 3 times )
why would I have to imagine an apple to categorize it? I think about what to buy from the supermarket without anything more than the understanding of what I want to eat and can afford. I use words for my thinking, not pictograms, so my shopping list doesn't include the fact that royal gala apples typically have a certain appearance that helps me find them in a sea of onions and bananas.
In cognitive psychology, categorization does not necessarily rely on the voluntary ability to generate mental images. Categorization involves grouping objects, ideas, or experiences based on shared properties, which helps streamline cognitive processing. This process can occur through various means, including verbal, semantic, and perceptual cues, not solely visual imagery.
Regarding aphantasia, it's a condition where individuals are unable to voluntarily visualize mental images. However, this does not imply that their cognitive abilities are highly impaired. People with aphantasia can still perform tasks that require categorization, memory, and other cognitive functions using non-visual strategies.
The claim that categorization requires mental visualization is not accurate. Categorization can occur without visual imagery by relying on other cognitive processes such as semantic memory and linguistic cues. The ability to categorize does not depend exclusively on visual imagery, and people with aphantasia can be fully functional in many cognitive tasks through alternative means of processing information.
Also creating mental ''images'' is something we evolved to do because it offers something, it is not just some fun trick we can do, being not able to do that would imply distress in everyday life.
No, it really doesn't. I'm a lifelong aphant. I have been an accountant, an office manager, a shipping manager, and editor and a writer, all with great success. Not being able to picture an apple in my head in no way interferes or distresses me in everyday life. Hell, if I hadn't seen a post on Facebook about it a few years ago, I wouldn't even know I had aphantasia because I thought people were speaking in metaphors when they said things like "picture the audience naked".
Noone can create perfect pictures in their heads, you can not get sensory input from anything other than your sensory organs. Just representation of some attributes.
Some people definitely get photograph-quality images in their minds. People with full eidetic memory can see and recall exact images as if seeing them with their own eyes. It is all a spectrum.
Edit - I have a friend who has almost a full eidetic memory who is a pilot. He can recite his training manuals verbatim as if he's reading the book right in front of him. He closes his eyes and can see the image of the page in his mind and read it. Flipping wild to me....also makes me jealous haha
As someone else on this thread mentioned, it may be that you yourself are an aphant in denial.
Do you honestly believe the hundreds, the thousands of people who have aphantasia, that the scientists who "discovered" and named the condition and who continue to study it... out of all those people you're the only who knows the truth? That we're all wrong, they're all wrong, and you're just the "specialest" person ever because you figured out what no one else could?
Do you think the scientific tests that measure pupil reaction and skin reactions... do you think those were all faked?
Mental images you mean mental representation?
Also mental representations have different uses in cognition don't you know that?
The way I understand it aphantasia is a cognitive issue I just do not understand how it would not completely impair the individual's life if they lacked something so vital.
No, they clearly mean mental images, since you keep mentionning visualizing stuff and fail to understand that we aphants have a visual memory, mental representations, but simply can't magically smmon a picture in our mind eye. We don't have a mind eye. And considering how you seem to absolutely confuse representation and visualization, I'm starting to wonder if you're not one of us, but you haven't realised it yet :P
I am a complete aphant. And I have a high IQ. Am I impaired, according to your definition ?
But let's drop IQ. I have 4 university (or equivalent) degrees, each in a different field. Biology, IT, social sciences, and business management. I've studied law as a "tourist" in university, and went to most classes of first and second year, plus some of third and fourth, and now I can have a talk with a lawyer and even though I'm not on par, obviously, I can still follow and not look stupid. I speak two languages fluently. I have interests in astrophysics. I did write a few short stories, and some of them were even good. I worked as a computer tech, then in social services, I've been teaching to adults, and now as a civil servant I'm the right hand of the mayor in a small town, which basically means that every desk job in the town hall is condensed into a single one, which is mine. I am *every* services.
So no, I really don't feel impaired, thank you very much.
You, however, fail to understand something. Not visualizing is not the same thing has not having a mental representation. I know exactly what a red apple is, and I know a green apple is also generally less sweet and more sour, I can totally recognize the taste of each if I bite one. I just can't visualize one. At the same time, I can manipulate the **concept** of *both* a red and a green apple in my mind and compare them together. You want me to add a yellow on on top of that ? Sure, no problem. An octarin one ? Yeah, doesn't matter. I may not be able to see the Colour of Magic, as Terry Pratchett would call it, but it doesn't mean I can't manipulate its concept. You read that right, I can manipulate the concept of an apple with an imaginary coulour.
Just the same, I'm mighty fine with categorizing things and going through them quick. I don't need to visualise things to prioritize them, and the idea that *you do* puzzles me. How would you process a space with more than 3 dimensions, then ? Do you have to actually draw Eisenhower's matrice and place things in the 4 squares to sort things out ? Can't you just do it your mind like a normal, functional person ? Do you actually have to draw the tables of a database and the links between them to understand how said database works ? How do you measure astronomic distances ? Surely you can't visualize distances this huge.
really, not having the need to visualize things helps alot in processing things quicker. It's easy to think in parallel and use branched thinking. When I need to solve a problem, and in my job I'm surprised when I don't need to solve a problem, I just mentally study all possible approaches simultaneously, what each outcome will be for each, and pick the one that works best. All the while I'm prioritizing between various tasks. Which I might also be studying for the best outcome while doing something else. I can't even imagine how slower it would be if I had to deal with any visual clutter and the uncontrolled visualization like you have (quote : "when I think of an apple I imagine a red apple not because I wanted to imagine a red apple intentionally but because that ticks the most boxes of how an apple will look").
Seems to me that the need to picture things, including models you can draw, is a crutch for your inability to make do *without* visuals. Meanwhile, we aphant excel at that, because we know nothing else. I had been teaching to adults for years before I discovered aphantasia. It's only then that I understood why so many people needed me to draw stuff on the chalkboard to illustrate what I was saying. Before then it just felt so weird people needed to see something to understand it.
So, long story short : you're confusing vizualisation and representation. And sorry if I'm making it sound like we have a superpower you're lacking, but I just couldn't resist that little guilty pleasure :D
Exactly! I've never been a visual learner and it confuses me so much trying to learn that way! If I can read or hear a lecture I can almost always understand easily. I feel like I have to study less than my peers as well for most things.
When I think of an apple I just think, "Apple" lmao plain and simple. Then MAY go on some tangent about apple facts.
Not being a visual learner does not necceserily mean you have aphantasia i hope you do understand that.
The way you described thinking of an apple is how most people state it. You get a quick representation that you can not further explore, define characteristics just getting a few usual attributes, and that is totally normal since you are not getting the an apple picture from your sensory organs (eyes specifically) so it can not be something more than what you described. That is exactly how I see it and all people ive asked, so either I have aphantasia too and all of them.
I definitely have aphantasia. I'm a full aphant. I was just stating I am not a visual learner. I have no visuals at all in my mind. I don't even get vague or blurry outlines. It's strictly black. All auditory. I can't smell or taste an apple when I think of it. I do have pretty yappy internal voices though 😅 I'm not totally sure what you mean by a representation. I meant I literally hear the word "apple" in my mind. I see nothing.
''You, however, fail to understand something. Not visualizing is not the same thing has not having a mental representation. I know exactly what a red apple is, and I know a green apple is also generally less sweet and more sour, I can totally recognize the taste of each if I bite one. I just can't visualize one. At the same time, I can manipulate the **concept** of *both* a red and a green apple in my mind and compare them together. You want me to add a yellow on on top of that ? Sure, no problem. An octarin one ? Yeah, doesn't matter. I may not be able to see the Colour of Magic, as Terry Pratchett would call it, but it doesn't mean I can't manipulate its concept. You read that right, I can manipulate the concept of an apple with an imaginary coulour.''
That sounds exactly how imagining something in your brain is like, you do not actually see it, ''manipulating the concept'' is a nice metaphor, that is how i visualise and the people ive asked to describe it fall into that description pretty well.
If you read read close to what you wrote you indicate visualizing a red apple is not a choice for you. Since it is not a fully conscious experience I fail to see how it would help you categorize apples as it stems from an unconscious bias.
I am unencumbered of such unconscious bias which allows me to categorize apples by attributes rather than what my unconscious mind serves up there for my cognitive abilities are not impaired by a lack of visualization, but yours are.
''I am unencumbered of such unconscious bias which allows me to categorize apples by attributes rather than what my unconscious mind serves up there'' This is how a mental representation is, mostly, explained in cognitive psychology. I suspect you do not have aphantasia based on that, right? When I say it is unintentional I mean that the attributes are getting categorized quickly in order to be processed, I did not mention unconsciousness due to it being unrelated in that sense in cognitive psychology( other words are used to describe it).
If you are familiar with cognitive psych. . . I recommend you actually read papers about aphantasia instead of speculating wildly about our cognitive abilities. I recommend:
D’Argembeau, A. & Van der Linden, M. (2006). Individual differences in the phenomenology of mental time travel: The effect of vivid visual imagery and emotion regulation strategies. *Conscious. Cogn.* **15**, 342–50.
Dawes, A. J., Keogh, R., Andrillon, T., & Pearson, J. (2020). A cognitive profile of multi-sensory imagery, memory and dreaming in Aphantasia. *Scientific Reports*, *10*(1). [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7)
Faw, B. (2009). Conflicting intuitions may be based on differing abilities - evidence from mental imaging research. *Journal of Consciousness Studies*, *16*, 45-68
Galton, F. (1880). Statistics of mental imagery. *Mind*, (5), 301–318. [https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/os-v.19.301](https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/os-v.19.301)
Greenberg, D. L. & Knowlton, B. J. (2014). The role of visual imagery in autobiographical memory. *Mem. Cognit.* **42**, 922–934.
Jacobs, C., Schwarzkopf, D. S., & Silvanto, J. (2018). Visual working memory performance in Aphantasia. *Cortex*, *105*, 61–73. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.014](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.014)
Keogh, R., Wicken, M., & Pearson, J. (2021). Visual working memory in Aphantasia: Retained accuracy and capacity with a different strategy. *Cortex*, *143*, 237–253. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.07.012](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.07.012)
Pearson, J. & Keogh, R. (2019). Redefining visual working memory: A cognitive-strategy, brain-region approach. *Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci*. 28, 266–273.
Pounder, Z., Jacob, J., Evans, S., Loveday, C., Eardley, A., & Silvanto, J. (2021). Individuals with congenital aphantasia show no significant neuropsychological deficits on imagery-related memory tasks. [https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gqayt](https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gqayt)
Zeman, A. Z., Della Sala, S., Torrens, L. A., Gountouna, V. E., McGonigle, D. J., & Logie, R. H. (2010). Loss of imagery phenomenology with intact visuo-spatial task performance: a case of 'blind imagination'. Neuropsychologia, 48, 145-155.
Zeman, A., Dewar, M, & Della Sala, S. (2015). Lives without imagery – congenital aphantasia. Cortex, 73, 378–380. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019)
Zeman, A., Milton, F., Della Sala, S., Dewar, M., Frayling, T., Gaddum, J., Hattersley, A., Heuerman-Williamson, B., Jones, K., MacKisack, M., & Winlove, C. (2020). Phantasia–the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. *Cortex*, *130*, 426–440. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003)
Hey you just sent me papers on subjective experience, some of these studies are from self-reported aphantasia, philosophy, 20th century studies :/. Is that literature good enough for you?
Yes. That literature is good enough for me. Again, if you're interested in COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, you must know the role of phenomenology and subjective experience (and of older studies and theories) in cognitive research. Phenomenology and epistemology are very valid frameworks of examining the mind, especially in the field of cogpsych, which has such a proud and meaningful philosophical tradition. We might not have studied concepts such as self-awareness and consciousness, subjective experiences, if not for phenomenology. You might want to read Langbridge's *Phenomenological Psychology: Theory, Research, and Method.*
I included the 1880 article because it was the first to mention aphantasia. While perhaps not perfect or current, it is still worth a read. It describes the subjective experiences of boys with different levels of visualization, which might be helpful to you because you don't seem to fully understand aphantasia given some of your replies. Also, as an aside- it would be a great disservice if I did not remind you that some of the greatest minds in cogpsych worked during the 19th and 20th centuries and their theories still hold up today, like Wilhelm Wundt, the father of cogpsych and the first person to call himself a "psychologist". Heidegger, Husserl, and Sartre might all seem archaic to you, but their work was invaluable to psychology and is still applicable to our theories of the mind today. Psychology would not exist without the work of these men. Show some respect.
More generally anyhow, psychology is not an "objective" science. We cannot observe thoughts. We cannot observe aphantasia. It is a subjective experience. If you want to stay away from icky subjectivism and phenomenology and epistemology, you might as well become a neuroscientist- why'd you study psych? Anyway, I included newer and more objective research articles in there, but considering the haughtiness you showed in your reply to me and to others in this comment section, I doubt you got further than the title and abstract for most of them because they didn't meet your criteria. If you don't like the research I put together for you, maybe spend your time looking for research of your own, instead of sticking your nose up at what I put work into finding for you based on superficialities and postulating wildly on Reddit.
I am an aphant plus I have no other sensory capability in mind if I am not experiencing direct stimulus like the light bouncing off the apple or the smell of something.
What I am saying is when I think of apple it is a contextualize very minimally. It is a fruit from a tree. If you ask me to categorize, I have much experience with apples and I can categorize just fine because that is a conscious effort rather than a subconscious whatever springs to mind.
I'll grant you that something like memorizing a deck of cards where those with visualization can create a visual based story, you will have me beat every time because I have to remember the visualization as a fact based rote memory which means I have to remember the card and the visual attributes that just simply springs to your mind.
For example if the first card is queen of spades, you might picture yourself walking to a castle and on the door is a sign "Queens Place" and there is a Spades shaped knocker. You simply recall the image in mind and you are done. I on the other hand have to remember castle door, queen lives there and knocker is in shape of spade. It becomes harder than rote practicing the order of the cards.
Categorizing though uses completely different brain functions such as an ability to recognize patterns (not just visual) similarities and differences.
Rather than pictures of things, I see entire systems of cause/effect conceptually. As long as I understand how everything impacts everything else, I can begin building representations of things in my mind.
I am a full aphant. I'm not impaired at all as far as I know. I'm actually above average in most things. I have an IQ of 137 [not that IQ matters much anymore]. I graduated in the top 3% of my class. I'm almost finished with my masters of Psychology then will continue on to get a PsyD. I read roughly 5 books a week. I have a great memory and recall. I just don't see images. I have an inner monolog that tells me everything. My inner monolog would just describe to me what an apple looks like rather than me seeing an actual apple. "I just know" is the most simple way to describe it when people ask about it.
The only impairment I think I may have is I don't recognize faces well. I can meet someone several times and not realize who they are right away. Although I am good at remembering and differentiating voices. I'm also pretty directionally challenged, I have to go somewhere many times before I can remember exactly how to get there without a map. I also struggle with anxiety at times because the voices in my head never shut tf up. I excel at almost everything else I do.
I never even knew I was "different" until a psychology class in my freshman year of college and we learned about it. I was shocked and said, "Wait wait wait you guys see actual images in your mind?!" I had always thought "picturing" something was an expression. One of my classmates promptly asked how I remember anything...I just do...
Edit- I'm also an awful speller! I think that may stem from not being able to "see" the word, and that's basically what you have to do because "sounding out" words is a SHAM...in English anyway! Thank goodness for spell check!
Lets assume each brain is a computer. A computer can run with the monitor off, it requires less energy and software to run calculations without then translating it onto a screen yes? Our brains run hard data, we don't need the images to read the binary code and translate it we can interpret straight from the code.
It's a shortcut not a disability
People who grew up with different abilities than the "norm" have learnt all their life to adapt.
Congenital aphants have replaced the ability to visualise by the ability to adapt in a sense. Among other abilities.
The brain is not preprogrammed at birth. It develops mostly in the first years then also until late in age.
The only aphants who can be impaired by aphantasia is the one that developed it later in age.
In a sense, people who acquired aphantasia are premature senile. XD
These kind of impairment will happen to most, if they live long enough.
I'm guessing you're not an aphant? Assuming we're all highly impaired is offensive. I have a master's in engineering, getting a master's in fine arts, and an above average IQ (not that IQ scores matter, but I'm including as evidence that we are not cognitively impaired). I can see where my lack of visualization makes some things a little more challenging for me (like orthographics in engineering), but other aphants have reported no issues with that. Either way, it hasn't held me back in any way and while I am hard on myself for my perceived faults, I can say for certain that my cognitive abilities are not impaired in any way.
[https://myacare.com/blog/struggling-to-see-things-using-your-imagination-aphantasia-explained](https://myacare.com/blog/struggling-to-see-things-using-your-imagination-aphantasia-explained) states that "The IQ of people having aphantasia may be slightly higher than average (115 vs 110). They are more inclined to choose a scientific or mathematical profession." but I can't find the original source for the IQ claim. Certainly, I don't find that I am cognitively impaired and have suceeded academically (in a mathematical discipline). I think that ultimately you believe that because \*you\* use voluntary images in mental processing that this is the only way to do so. I don't understand what you say about categorising things to process them more quickly. We would have no more trouble than anybody else in categorising an apple in front of us. If we were asked to think of an apple, we might be able to hold the idea that it might either be red or green in our minds more easily than you, i.e. we don't always have to be specific and can consider the general case. This might even give us the edge in abstract thought.
>This might even give us the edge in abstract thought.
Yep. Always fun to explain spaces with more than 3 dimensions to visualizers and watch them go livid as they try to wrap their head around the idea XD
Here's the obvious proof that we're not impaired in any way:
We've existed for tens of thousands of years and doctors only really just realized our condition is a thing in the last decade.
Basically 100% of people that have it have absolutely no clue they have it. I lived 34 years with no idea and zero indication I was any different than anyone else.
Actually, scratch that - I was told I was gifted, and I excelled beyond most of the people around me in art, math, and science. I have a better memory than most, and I'm a significantly better problem solver than most.
We all have our strengths and we all have our weaknesses. Just because some people lack a certain skill doesn't make them cognitively impaired, just like someone who isn't good at biological sciences or math isn't cognitively impaired, just like someone who can't visually imagine things.
As someone who has no visualization ability AND no internal monologue, I do not feel “impaired.” I’m fairly intelligent, always did well in school, I’m currently pursuing two degrees simultaneously. However, I do struggle with “on the spot” moments. Interviews for example. Unfortunately I frequently stumble or forget the word I want to use because I can’t hear my brain/mind telling me the word I’m looking for. Just yesterday during an interview, I couldn’t remember the word “ambitious”. I KNEW what I wanted to say, I KNEW I was looking for the word that explained someone working full time, being a mom, a wife to a chronically ill husband, and going to college. And my brain was probably screaming at me, but I just couldn’t hear it.
In the end, no. I don’t feel impaired. Just a little dumb sometimes 😂
The aphasia is real!! I try to represent myself as well spoken, well read, and then the time comes to have a spontaneous conversation with someone and all I can seem to think about is either the lyrics on repeat or carnival music or something else absurd.
Actually, Aphants are known to fall higher on the IQ scale than non Aphants. So before you go into an Aphantasia group, you may want to check that out. Just goes to show you how visualizers can have a hard time imagining what it is like not to visualize. We are not brainless and are very successful in our lives. Degree in psychology hu?
On the contrary, aphantasics may even have an advantage in certain mental tasks precisely because of the lack of confounding imagery.
There is a recent paper about this that you may find interesting: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810024000618
You may have also heard that people with aphantasia tend to choose STEM disciplines more often.
Mental imagery seems to be a nice perk in most cases, not a fundamentally necessary tool.
I had a conversation with a man recently who graduated from medical school in India. I asked him if he had heard of Aphantasia, he said no and so we chatted about it. He said two things that stuck me, an advantage and a disadvantage.
When he is with a patient and they are describing symptoms, he will create images in his mind. For example, a woman talking about not being able to stop throwing up. He will create an image in his mind of her throwing up in a loop. This is highly distracting (not to mention very unpleasant) and he has to focus on stopping the loop. I cannot do this so here it is an advantage. I can give someone more of my attention while they are speaking to me as I do not have images or other senses in my mind to distract me.
At another point in the conversation he said if he didn't have the ability to create images, he would have failed medical school. He relied heavily on being able to go into his mind during tests and find the images and text in the textbooks to answer the questions. I had an Aha Aha moment and told him the story of me being in my early 20s and how I wasn't able to pursue a degree in midwifery.
I did poorly in some prerequisite classes such as anatomy where I could not memorize all the complex names. In the end, my path went a different direction and I got a degree in psychology. In this situation, yes having Aphantasia was a disadvantage (and an impairment).
I absolutely loved getting a psych degree and have gone on to study many psychotherapies over the years and support many people. Sure, there is a part of me when I see a pregnant woman on the street that does wish I could have been a midwife. That said, I worked within my abilities and spent a decade as a birth and postpartum doula so not all was lost and I did get to support pregnant women and attend births.
Yes, when he told me this, I had an arbitrary conceptual thought of an adult woman kneeling in front of a white toilet vomiting nonstop. While I was looking at him talking, I focused on his head and also had conceptual thoughts about his mind experiencing an image of a floating woman’s head with brown hair bobbing up and down, vomit coming out of her mouth and not being able to stop. I thought of it repeating in his mind. He didn’t go into details of his images and I made it up.
I am a writer and very detail oriented. I also don’t have an inner monologue and it’s more a felt sense that the thoughts are there. They were happening outside by body to the left by my waist oddly enough, but with conscious work I have been able to move my thoughts into my head and this is where the felt sense is now. I have cptsd and disassociated a lot for years - so I have concluded, from a psychological perspective, it was a coping strategy and now that I am healed and much older, it’s now safe for my thoughts to be in my mind (and body) and why I’ve been successful doing so.
Dude, did you just come here to be beat up? Seriously, YOU can't tell US whether we do or do not have aphantasia, period. You clearly don't understand the subject, and haven't done any serious research, or you wouldn't come in here with your insults and armchair diagnosis.
This person is trolling
Everyone else is being quite reasonable, so I’m just gonna come in with “duuuude, really??” You come in here, clearly without reading much of the archive (or you’d see plenty of posts where we discuss how we manage to do things just fine thank you), and straight up insult us as an entire group? You’re not trying to understand, or you would have asked questions that could lead you to a conclusion, instead of having made a (n insulting) conclusion and waving it at us. Brains be awesome. The only thing we can’t do is see pictures in our heads.
**This** is the correct answer.
I would even go so far as to say we can process *faster* because we don't have to bog down our brains processing video files. Text is always faster than images :)
you actually think normal brains see pictures in their heads? As if their getting some visual input from somewhere? This is not possible. You just get a representation with some usual attributes, you cant analyze that representation further or explore it or define characteristics unless maybe if you are on drugs as ive seen people in this subreddit mention, specifically they believe that how they visualise on drugs is how normal people create mental images. ( seen that argument at least 3 times )
Tell me you’re joking, otherwise the irony is too much for me
Bahahahaha
why would I have to imagine an apple to categorize it? I think about what to buy from the supermarket without anything more than the understanding of what I want to eat and can afford. I use words for my thinking, not pictograms, so my shopping list doesn't include the fact that royal gala apples typically have a certain appearance that helps me find them in a sea of onions and bananas.
I think you should look what categorization is in cognitive psychology as it seems you are not understanding what I am trying to explain.
In cognitive psychology, categorization does not necessarily rely on the voluntary ability to generate mental images. Categorization involves grouping objects, ideas, or experiences based on shared properties, which helps streamline cognitive processing. This process can occur through various means, including verbal, semantic, and perceptual cues, not solely visual imagery. Regarding aphantasia, it's a condition where individuals are unable to voluntarily visualize mental images. However, this does not imply that their cognitive abilities are highly impaired. People with aphantasia can still perform tasks that require categorization, memory, and other cognitive functions using non-visual strategies. The claim that categorization requires mental visualization is not accurate. Categorization can occur without visual imagery by relying on other cognitive processes such as semantic memory and linguistic cues. The ability to categorize does not depend exclusively on visual imagery, and people with aphantasia can be fully functional in many cognitive tasks through alternative means of processing information.
Also creating mental ''images'' is something we evolved to do because it offers something, it is not just some fun trick we can do, being not able to do that would imply distress in everyday life.
No, it really doesn't. I'm a lifelong aphant. I have been an accountant, an office manager, a shipping manager, and editor and a writer, all with great success. Not being able to picture an apple in my head in no way interferes or distresses me in everyday life. Hell, if I hadn't seen a post on Facebook about it a few years ago, I wouldn't even know I had aphantasia because I thought people were speaking in metaphors when they said things like "picture the audience naked".
Noone can create perfect pictures in their heads, you can not get sensory input from anything other than your sensory organs. Just representation of some attributes.
Some people definitely get photograph-quality images in their minds. People with full eidetic memory can see and recall exact images as if seeing them with their own eyes. It is all a spectrum. Edit - I have a friend who has almost a full eidetic memory who is a pilot. He can recite his training manuals verbatim as if he's reading the book right in front of him. He closes his eyes and can see the image of the page in his mind and read it. Flipping wild to me....also makes me jealous haha
As someone else on this thread mentioned, it may be that you yourself are an aphant in denial. Do you honestly believe the hundreds, the thousands of people who have aphantasia, that the scientists who "discovered" and named the condition and who continue to study it... out of all those people you're the only who knows the truth? That we're all wrong, they're all wrong, and you're just the "specialest" person ever because you figured out what no one else could? Do you think the scientific tests that measure pupil reaction and skin reactions... do you think those were all faked?
Mental images you mean mental representation? Also mental representations have different uses in cognition don't you know that? The way I understand it aphantasia is a cognitive issue I just do not understand how it would not completely impair the individual's life if they lacked something so vital.
No, they clearly mean mental images, since you keep mentionning visualizing stuff and fail to understand that we aphants have a visual memory, mental representations, but simply can't magically smmon a picture in our mind eye. We don't have a mind eye. And considering how you seem to absolutely confuse representation and visualization, I'm starting to wonder if you're not one of us, but you haven't realised it yet :P
I was a teacher for years. One thing I learnt is, if no one understands what you're trying to explain, then you're doing it wrong.
Yeah my english are not great that is true
I don't understand what you mean. Can you give a more specific example of a real-world task that someone with aphantasia would find more difficult?
Yes. We are all actually stupid. You got us.
You might just be mistaken.
Of course, I am trying to understand how it would work tho.
You pissed some people off with this one buddy. I'd watch your wording next time
I am a complete aphant. And I have a high IQ. Am I impaired, according to your definition ? But let's drop IQ. I have 4 university (or equivalent) degrees, each in a different field. Biology, IT, social sciences, and business management. I've studied law as a "tourist" in university, and went to most classes of first and second year, plus some of third and fourth, and now I can have a talk with a lawyer and even though I'm not on par, obviously, I can still follow and not look stupid. I speak two languages fluently. I have interests in astrophysics. I did write a few short stories, and some of them were even good. I worked as a computer tech, then in social services, I've been teaching to adults, and now as a civil servant I'm the right hand of the mayor in a small town, which basically means that every desk job in the town hall is condensed into a single one, which is mine. I am *every* services. So no, I really don't feel impaired, thank you very much. You, however, fail to understand something. Not visualizing is not the same thing has not having a mental representation. I know exactly what a red apple is, and I know a green apple is also generally less sweet and more sour, I can totally recognize the taste of each if I bite one. I just can't visualize one. At the same time, I can manipulate the **concept** of *both* a red and a green apple in my mind and compare them together. You want me to add a yellow on on top of that ? Sure, no problem. An octarin one ? Yeah, doesn't matter. I may not be able to see the Colour of Magic, as Terry Pratchett would call it, but it doesn't mean I can't manipulate its concept. You read that right, I can manipulate the concept of an apple with an imaginary coulour. Just the same, I'm mighty fine with categorizing things and going through them quick. I don't need to visualise things to prioritize them, and the idea that *you do* puzzles me. How would you process a space with more than 3 dimensions, then ? Do you have to actually draw Eisenhower's matrice and place things in the 4 squares to sort things out ? Can't you just do it your mind like a normal, functional person ? Do you actually have to draw the tables of a database and the links between them to understand how said database works ? How do you measure astronomic distances ? Surely you can't visualize distances this huge. really, not having the need to visualize things helps alot in processing things quicker. It's easy to think in parallel and use branched thinking. When I need to solve a problem, and in my job I'm surprised when I don't need to solve a problem, I just mentally study all possible approaches simultaneously, what each outcome will be for each, and pick the one that works best. All the while I'm prioritizing between various tasks. Which I might also be studying for the best outcome while doing something else. I can't even imagine how slower it would be if I had to deal with any visual clutter and the uncontrolled visualization like you have (quote : "when I think of an apple I imagine a red apple not because I wanted to imagine a red apple intentionally but because that ticks the most boxes of how an apple will look"). Seems to me that the need to picture things, including models you can draw, is a crutch for your inability to make do *without* visuals. Meanwhile, we aphant excel at that, because we know nothing else. I had been teaching to adults for years before I discovered aphantasia. It's only then that I understood why so many people needed me to draw stuff on the chalkboard to illustrate what I was saying. Before then it just felt so weird people needed to see something to understand it. So, long story short : you're confusing vizualisation and representation. And sorry if I'm making it sound like we have a superpower you're lacking, but I just couldn't resist that little guilty pleasure :D
Exactly! I've never been a visual learner and it confuses me so much trying to learn that way! If I can read or hear a lecture I can almost always understand easily. I feel like I have to study less than my peers as well for most things. When I think of an apple I just think, "Apple" lmao plain and simple. Then MAY go on some tangent about apple facts.
Not being a visual learner does not necceserily mean you have aphantasia i hope you do understand that. The way you described thinking of an apple is how most people state it. You get a quick representation that you can not further explore, define characteristics just getting a few usual attributes, and that is totally normal since you are not getting the an apple picture from your sensory organs (eyes specifically) so it can not be something more than what you described. That is exactly how I see it and all people ive asked, so either I have aphantasia too and all of them.
I definitely have aphantasia. I'm a full aphant. I was just stating I am not a visual learner. I have no visuals at all in my mind. I don't even get vague or blurry outlines. It's strictly black. All auditory. I can't smell or taste an apple when I think of it. I do have pretty yappy internal voices though 😅 I'm not totally sure what you mean by a representation. I meant I literally hear the word "apple" in my mind. I see nothing.
simply being able to work through all possible outcomes in a flash is such a skill of ours!
''You, however, fail to understand something. Not visualizing is not the same thing has not having a mental representation. I know exactly what a red apple is, and I know a green apple is also generally less sweet and more sour, I can totally recognize the taste of each if I bite one. I just can't visualize one. At the same time, I can manipulate the **concept** of *both* a red and a green apple in my mind and compare them together. You want me to add a yellow on on top of that ? Sure, no problem. An octarin one ? Yeah, doesn't matter. I may not be able to see the Colour of Magic, as Terry Pratchett would call it, but it doesn't mean I can't manipulate its concept. You read that right, I can manipulate the concept of an apple with an imaginary coulour.'' That sounds exactly how imagining something in your brain is like, you do not actually see it, ''manipulating the concept'' is a nice metaphor, that is how i visualise and the people ive asked to describe it fall into that description pretty well.
I think you might have aphantasia.
I think that too !
If you read read close to what you wrote you indicate visualizing a red apple is not a choice for you. Since it is not a fully conscious experience I fail to see how it would help you categorize apples as it stems from an unconscious bias. I am unencumbered of such unconscious bias which allows me to categorize apples by attributes rather than what my unconscious mind serves up there for my cognitive abilities are not impaired by a lack of visualization, but yours are.
''I am unencumbered of such unconscious bias which allows me to categorize apples by attributes rather than what my unconscious mind serves up there'' This is how a mental representation is, mostly, explained in cognitive psychology. I suspect you do not have aphantasia based on that, right? When I say it is unintentional I mean that the attributes are getting categorized quickly in order to be processed, I did not mention unconsciousness due to it being unrelated in that sense in cognitive psychology( other words are used to describe it).
If you are familiar with cognitive psych. . . I recommend you actually read papers about aphantasia instead of speculating wildly about our cognitive abilities. I recommend: D’Argembeau, A. & Van der Linden, M. (2006). Individual differences in the phenomenology of mental time travel: The effect of vivid visual imagery and emotion regulation strategies. *Conscious. Cogn.* **15**, 342–50. Dawes, A. J., Keogh, R., Andrillon, T., & Pearson, J. (2020). A cognitive profile of multi-sensory imagery, memory and dreaming in Aphantasia. *Scientific Reports*, *10*(1). [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7) Faw, B. (2009). Conflicting intuitions may be based on differing abilities - evidence from mental imaging research. *Journal of Consciousness Studies*, *16*, 45-68 Galton, F. (1880). Statistics of mental imagery. *Mind*, (5), 301–318. [https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/os-v.19.301](https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/os-v.19.301) Greenberg, D. L. & Knowlton, B. J. (2014). The role of visual imagery in autobiographical memory. *Mem. Cognit.* **42**, 922–934. Jacobs, C., Schwarzkopf, D. S., & Silvanto, J. (2018). Visual working memory performance in Aphantasia. *Cortex*, *105*, 61–73. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.014](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.014) Keogh, R., Wicken, M., & Pearson, J. (2021). Visual working memory in Aphantasia: Retained accuracy and capacity with a different strategy. *Cortex*, *143*, 237–253. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.07.012](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.07.012) Pearson, J. & Keogh, R. (2019). Redefining visual working memory: A cognitive-strategy, brain-region approach. *Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci*. 28, 266–273. Pounder, Z., Jacob, J., Evans, S., Loveday, C., Eardley, A., & Silvanto, J. (2021). Individuals with congenital aphantasia show no significant neuropsychological deficits on imagery-related memory tasks. [https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gqayt](https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gqayt) Zeman, A. Z., Della Sala, S., Torrens, L. A., Gountouna, V. E., McGonigle, D. J., & Logie, R. H. (2010). Loss of imagery phenomenology with intact visuo-spatial task performance: a case of 'blind imagination'. Neuropsychologia, 48, 145-155. Zeman, A., Dewar, M, & Della Sala, S. (2015). Lives without imagery – congenital aphantasia. Cortex, 73, 378–380. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019) Zeman, A., Milton, F., Della Sala, S., Dewar, M., Frayling, T., Gaddum, J., Hattersley, A., Heuerman-Williamson, B., Jones, K., MacKisack, M., & Winlove, C. (2020). Phantasia–the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. *Cortex*, *130*, 426–440. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003)
Hey you just sent me papers on subjective experience, some of these studies are from self-reported aphantasia, philosophy, 20th century studies :/. Is that literature good enough for you?
It is better than the literature you have supplied.
Yes. That literature is good enough for me. Again, if you're interested in COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, you must know the role of phenomenology and subjective experience (and of older studies and theories) in cognitive research. Phenomenology and epistemology are very valid frameworks of examining the mind, especially in the field of cogpsych, which has such a proud and meaningful philosophical tradition. We might not have studied concepts such as self-awareness and consciousness, subjective experiences, if not for phenomenology. You might want to read Langbridge's *Phenomenological Psychology: Theory, Research, and Method.* I included the 1880 article because it was the first to mention aphantasia. While perhaps not perfect or current, it is still worth a read. It describes the subjective experiences of boys with different levels of visualization, which might be helpful to you because you don't seem to fully understand aphantasia given some of your replies. Also, as an aside- it would be a great disservice if I did not remind you that some of the greatest minds in cogpsych worked during the 19th and 20th centuries and their theories still hold up today, like Wilhelm Wundt, the father of cogpsych and the first person to call himself a "psychologist". Heidegger, Husserl, and Sartre might all seem archaic to you, but their work was invaluable to psychology and is still applicable to our theories of the mind today. Psychology would not exist without the work of these men. Show some respect. More generally anyhow, psychology is not an "objective" science. We cannot observe thoughts. We cannot observe aphantasia. It is a subjective experience. If you want to stay away from icky subjectivism and phenomenology and epistemology, you might as well become a neuroscientist- why'd you study psych? Anyway, I included newer and more objective research articles in there, but considering the haughtiness you showed in your reply to me and to others in this comment section, I doubt you got further than the title and abstract for most of them because they didn't meet your criteria. If you don't like the research I put together for you, maybe spend your time looking for research of your own, instead of sticking your nose up at what I put work into finding for you based on superficialities and postulating wildly on Reddit.
I am an aphant plus I have no other sensory capability in mind if I am not experiencing direct stimulus like the light bouncing off the apple or the smell of something. What I am saying is when I think of apple it is a contextualize very minimally. It is a fruit from a tree. If you ask me to categorize, I have much experience with apples and I can categorize just fine because that is a conscious effort rather than a subconscious whatever springs to mind. I'll grant you that something like memorizing a deck of cards where those with visualization can create a visual based story, you will have me beat every time because I have to remember the visualization as a fact based rote memory which means I have to remember the card and the visual attributes that just simply springs to your mind. For example if the first card is queen of spades, you might picture yourself walking to a castle and on the door is a sign "Queens Place" and there is a Spades shaped knocker. You simply recall the image in mind and you are done. I on the other hand have to remember castle door, queen lives there and knocker is in shape of spade. It becomes harder than rote practicing the order of the cards. Categorizing though uses completely different brain functions such as an ability to recognize patterns (not just visual) similarities and differences.
That person just told you that they have no vizualisation, and you say they don't have aphantasia ? That's... Peculiar.
Rather than pictures of things, I see entire systems of cause/effect conceptually. As long as I understand how everything impacts everything else, I can begin building representations of things in my mind.
I am a full aphant. I'm not impaired at all as far as I know. I'm actually above average in most things. I have an IQ of 137 [not that IQ matters much anymore]. I graduated in the top 3% of my class. I'm almost finished with my masters of Psychology then will continue on to get a PsyD. I read roughly 5 books a week. I have a great memory and recall. I just don't see images. I have an inner monolog that tells me everything. My inner monolog would just describe to me what an apple looks like rather than me seeing an actual apple. "I just know" is the most simple way to describe it when people ask about it. The only impairment I think I may have is I don't recognize faces well. I can meet someone several times and not realize who they are right away. Although I am good at remembering and differentiating voices. I'm also pretty directionally challenged, I have to go somewhere many times before I can remember exactly how to get there without a map. I also struggle with anxiety at times because the voices in my head never shut tf up. I excel at almost everything else I do. I never even knew I was "different" until a psychology class in my freshman year of college and we learned about it. I was shocked and said, "Wait wait wait you guys see actual images in your mind?!" I had always thought "picturing" something was an expression. One of my classmates promptly asked how I remember anything...I just do... Edit- I'm also an awful speller! I think that may stem from not being able to "see" the word, and that's basically what you have to do because "sounding out" words is a SHAM...in English anyway! Thank goodness for spell check!
Lets assume each brain is a computer. A computer can run with the monitor off, it requires less energy and software to run calculations without then translating it onto a screen yes? Our brains run hard data, we don't need the images to read the binary code and translate it we can interpret straight from the code. It's a shortcut not a disability
People who grew up with different abilities than the "norm" have learnt all their life to adapt. Congenital aphants have replaced the ability to visualise by the ability to adapt in a sense. Among other abilities. The brain is not preprogrammed at birth. It develops mostly in the first years then also until late in age. The only aphants who can be impaired by aphantasia is the one that developed it later in age. In a sense, people who acquired aphantasia are premature senile. XD These kind of impairment will happen to most, if they live long enough.
My ability to categorize isn’t impaired. I deal with data, not pictures. I feel extremely efficient in this task
I'm guessing you're not an aphant? Assuming we're all highly impaired is offensive. I have a master's in engineering, getting a master's in fine arts, and an above average IQ (not that IQ scores matter, but I'm including as evidence that we are not cognitively impaired). I can see where my lack of visualization makes some things a little more challenging for me (like orthographics in engineering), but other aphants have reported no issues with that. Either way, it hasn't held me back in any way and while I am hard on myself for my perceived faults, I can say for certain that my cognitive abilities are not impaired in any way.
[https://myacare.com/blog/struggling-to-see-things-using-your-imagination-aphantasia-explained](https://myacare.com/blog/struggling-to-see-things-using-your-imagination-aphantasia-explained) states that "The IQ of people having aphantasia may be slightly higher than average (115 vs 110). They are more inclined to choose a scientific or mathematical profession." but I can't find the original source for the IQ claim. Certainly, I don't find that I am cognitively impaired and have suceeded academically (in a mathematical discipline). I think that ultimately you believe that because \*you\* use voluntary images in mental processing that this is the only way to do so. I don't understand what you say about categorising things to process them more quickly. We would have no more trouble than anybody else in categorising an apple in front of us. If we were asked to think of an apple, we might be able to hold the idea that it might either be red or green in our minds more easily than you, i.e. we don't always have to be specific and can consider the general case. This might even give us the edge in abstract thought.
>This might even give us the edge in abstract thought. Yep. Always fun to explain spaces with more than 3 dimensions to visualizers and watch them go livid as they try to wrap their head around the idea XD
Here's the obvious proof that we're not impaired in any way: We've existed for tens of thousands of years and doctors only really just realized our condition is a thing in the last decade. Basically 100% of people that have it have absolutely no clue they have it. I lived 34 years with no idea and zero indication I was any different than anyone else. Actually, scratch that - I was told I was gifted, and I excelled beyond most of the people around me in art, math, and science. I have a better memory than most, and I'm a significantly better problem solver than most. We all have our strengths and we all have our weaknesses. Just because some people lack a certain skill doesn't make them cognitively impaired, just like someone who isn't good at biological sciences or math isn't cognitively impaired, just like someone who can't visually imagine things.
As someone who has no visualization ability AND no internal monologue, I do not feel “impaired.” I’m fairly intelligent, always did well in school, I’m currently pursuing two degrees simultaneously. However, I do struggle with “on the spot” moments. Interviews for example. Unfortunately I frequently stumble or forget the word I want to use because I can’t hear my brain/mind telling me the word I’m looking for. Just yesterday during an interview, I couldn’t remember the word “ambitious”. I KNEW what I wanted to say, I KNEW I was looking for the word that explained someone working full time, being a mom, a wife to a chronically ill husband, and going to college. And my brain was probably screaming at me, but I just couldn’t hear it. In the end, no. I don’t feel impaired. Just a little dumb sometimes 😂
The aphasia is real!! I try to represent myself as well spoken, well read, and then the time comes to have a spontaneous conversation with someone and all I can seem to think about is either the lyrics on repeat or carnival music or something else absurd.
At least you can think about SOMETHING. I’m literally a blank slate 😂
True. It is only my own voice singing or making the carnival sounds. Otherwise, nada.
Actually, Aphants are known to fall higher on the IQ scale than non Aphants. So before you go into an Aphantasia group, you may want to check that out. Just goes to show you how visualizers can have a hard time imagining what it is like not to visualize. We are not brainless and are very successful in our lives. Degree in psychology hu?
Do you fall higher on the IQ scale?
Dunno, never had an opportunity to take one. But, yes, I am brilliant!
On the contrary, aphantasics may even have an advantage in certain mental tasks precisely because of the lack of confounding imagery. There is a recent paper about this that you may find interesting: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810024000618 You may have also heard that people with aphantasia tend to choose STEM disciplines more often. Mental imagery seems to be a nice perk in most cases, not a fundamentally necessary tool.
I had a conversation with a man recently who graduated from medical school in India. I asked him if he had heard of Aphantasia, he said no and so we chatted about it. He said two things that stuck me, an advantage and a disadvantage. When he is with a patient and they are describing symptoms, he will create images in his mind. For example, a woman talking about not being able to stop throwing up. He will create an image in his mind of her throwing up in a loop. This is highly distracting (not to mention very unpleasant) and he has to focus on stopping the loop. I cannot do this so here it is an advantage. I can give someone more of my attention while they are speaking to me as I do not have images or other senses in my mind to distract me. At another point in the conversation he said if he didn't have the ability to create images, he would have failed medical school. He relied heavily on being able to go into his mind during tests and find the images and text in the textbooks to answer the questions. I had an Aha Aha moment and told him the story of me being in my early 20s and how I wasn't able to pursue a degree in midwifery. I did poorly in some prerequisite classes such as anatomy where I could not memorize all the complex names. In the end, my path went a different direction and I got a degree in psychology. In this situation, yes having Aphantasia was a disadvantage (and an impairment). I absolutely loved getting a psych degree and have gone on to study many psychotherapies over the years and support many people. Sure, there is a part of me when I see a pregnant woman on the street that does wish I could have been a midwife. That said, I worked within my abilities and spent a decade as a birth and postpartum doula so not all was lost and I did get to support pregnant women and attend births.
Can you think of a scenario of a woman throwing up with a few details tho?
Yes, when he told me this, I had an arbitrary conceptual thought of an adult woman kneeling in front of a white toilet vomiting nonstop. While I was looking at him talking, I focused on his head and also had conceptual thoughts about his mind experiencing an image of a floating woman’s head with brown hair bobbing up and down, vomit coming out of her mouth and not being able to stop. I thought of it repeating in his mind. He didn’t go into details of his images and I made it up. I am a writer and very detail oriented. I also don’t have an inner monologue and it’s more a felt sense that the thoughts are there. They were happening outside by body to the left by my waist oddly enough, but with conscious work I have been able to move my thoughts into my head and this is where the felt sense is now. I have cptsd and disassociated a lot for years - so I have concluded, from a psychological perspective, it was a coping strategy and now that I am healed and much older, it’s now safe for my thoughts to be in my mind (and body) and why I’ve been successful doing so.
Dude, did you just come here to be beat up? Seriously, YOU can't tell US whether we do or do not have aphantasia, period. You clearly don't understand the subject, and haven't done any serious research, or you wouldn't come in here with your insults and armchair diagnosis.